


Again

by scribaversutus



Series: Whiplash [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, brainwashing cw, panic cw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 23:25:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4724165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribaversutus/pseuds/scribaversutus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raiding a Hydra base with Nat is the last thing he remembers, the memory fuzzy at the end.  There was fighting, and yelling, and… nothing.  It was a trap, he realizes, a ploy from the beginning.  And it worked.  They’ve got him now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Again

**Author's Note:**

> Brainwashing cw. Seriously. Don't read this if you aren't ready for angst.

The rise to consciousness is slow, much slower than usual. Less like a blow to the head and more like a drug in his system, Clint concludes as he gives up on trying to open his eyes and waits for it to happen on its own. Experience has taught him that some things can’t be rushed; his senses will work again but it will be on their own schedule, not his. Instead, he focuses on remembering how he got here so he knows how to react when he can function again.

Raiding a Hydra base with Nat is the last thing he remembers, the memory fuzzy at the end. There was fighting, and yelling, and… nothing. It was a trap, he realizes, a ploy from the beginning. And it worked. They’ve got him now.

A twitch in his cheek is the first hint he’s given that the drug is wearing off. His eyes crack open, but see nothing – he’s in darkness. Raising his head as much as he can, a fraction of an inch off the floor where he lays, he feels something brush against his ear and his cheek. Not darkness, then. A bag over his head. Smart of them, really, his sight is his best weapon.

Clint shifts more with small, painful movements as his hands tingle behind his back. They’re tied with… rope? it feels like rope – and damn, are the knots tight. Clint moves one hand, feels along his other wrist for the tiny knife he keeps there for just these occasions. No good – it’s gone. So is his hidden boot knife, he can’t feel it digging in where his ankles are tied. The slimy bastards, they’ve been thorough this time around. With no way to escape – yet – he shifts into the most comfortable position he can find and settles in to wait. It’s times like these that he’s thankful for his sniper training; the Clint who lived for the circus wouldn’t have made it five minutes here.

A steadily louder barrage of uneven footsteps is Clint’s first clue that his wait is over, but the knowledge that it is coming nor the experience from it being done before fully prepare him to be yanked roughly off the ground, blood rushing back to places he’d forgotten he had and pulling a yelp out of him that only gets him cuffed upside the head. Yup. Definitely supposed to stay quiet like a good little prisoner. He clamps his mouth shut for the time being; it’s better to cooperate until all cards are on the table, rather than run his mouth and get shut down so early in the game.

Clint feels the ropes around his ankles loosening, becoming a hobble instead of a full bond, and is suddenly tempted to kick out at the presence he feels just in front of him. Recalling the thought he’s just had about cooperating, though, he forces the impulse down with more than a little irritation. Play smart and you’ll win, he reminds himself even as he’s yanked forward and his temper flares again.

Six hundred and twenty-three steps that are half stumbling and half being dragged along later, he’s jerked to a halt in a room that sounds bigger than the hallways they’ve passed through to get here. The sound of his captors’ boots coming to a halt around him echoes eerily, more like nature than a man-made room, he realizes. He’s proved right when the bag is yanked off his head and a dim light reveals cave walls on all sides, stalactites and stalagmites still present on both sides of a path that bisects the cavern as it leads to a throne carved into the far wall. He doesn’t recognize the man sitting there, but it doesn’t really matter who he is – he’s obviously the one in charge around here, if the Hydra goons bowing to him are anything to go by, and that makes him Clint’s priority target. It’s all familiar, Clint realizes as his stomach begins to sink, a little too familiar…

And instantly he is pulled back to another cave, another mission, another man taking his will away from him and making him a puppet to be tangled in strings. Another man binding his hands and silencing his voice and forcing him down a path he doesn’t want to travel. Another man removing his vision and returning it, but different: tinged blue, hyper-focused and distinctly Not His Own…

The pain of downed agents and spilled secrets and betrayed trust rips through him, pulls him back to the Here and Now and settles in his heart to weigh it down more with every beat. He hasn’t felt even a hint of fear until now, doesn’t understand the panic suddenly gripping his throat and chest and making it hard to breathe, has no clue why this time is different from all the other times he’s been caught, why it’s still somehow familiar, why it’s so much more like That Time…

...until a flash of blue catches his eye and everything abruptly clicks.

It’s here, his mind whispers, it’s here, his body cries, it’s here, his voice croaks as his legs fail and he drops to his knees in front of it.

His mind races as it nears him, desperate for a way out, discarding ideas as quickly as they come, every thought as futile as his struggle against the Trickster had been. There is no way out this time.

There is no way out, and even as his will fights against it his mind accepts it and turns to more precious thoughts. His team, his brother, his partner, his family, they flash before him and he thinks this must be what death is like, and it is like death: there is no guarantee that he will ever wake from it.

Only one hope survives the despair in his soul, and that is that Nat will do for him now what she did for him before – stop him, no matter what it takes, no matter how she does it, no matter whether he survives it or not. Because it is like death, but not in the sense that he still feels what his body does while he is locked inside it, feels the adrenaline that surges in battle, feels the ache of tensed muscles and tired lungs, feels the rage that builds inside and knows it is being used against the people he vowed to protect and vowed to serve and vowed to love and that is worse than any death he can imagine.

Nat has done it before. Nat can do it again. Nat will come for me. Nat will save me.

He repeats the mantra as it descends toward his chest, desperately wills the frail hope to give him the strength to fight harder this time, to help Nat more when she comes for him, to make this time better than the last time, to make this the last time. He feels it flutter within him and take hold –

And feels it shatter and pierce the last intact piece of his heart when a hand grips his chin and forces him to look into a familiar face with all-too familiar eyes, eyes that have seen his pain and his joy, eyes that have witnessed his struggles and triumphs, eyes that have dimmed in sorrow and lit up like lights for him, eyes that have hated and loved him, eyes that now look at him with nothing behind them.

Eyes that are a piercing shade of blue.

It touches his chest.

His world turns blue.

Again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry.


End file.
